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UK Space Policy

I congratulate the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Olner) on securing this debate on the exciting subject of UK space policy. Although it is now nearly 50 years since the first satellite was sent into orbit, space exploration remains exciting and full of prospects for understanding the origins of the universe and life on Earth. There is also the tantalising prospect of finding evidence of life on other planets. Space studies continue to advance our knowledge of the universe and the fundamental laws that govern it. Although the exciting part of space is often exploring other planets and trying to understand the origins of life, the space industry is an important one in many other respects and can bring many benefits here on Earth. Satellites play an important role in communications and navigation. For example, the Government's proposals for road-user pricing would be impossible without satellite technology. Satellite services have a crucial role to play in extending broadband networks to households throughout the country, particularly in those remote and rural areas that are too far from telephone exchanges to be able to receive broadband on a landline. Satellites can also play an important role in monitoring the Earth, helping to forecast the weather, measuring climate change and aiding responses to natural and man-made disasters. Space is a high-value global industry and Britain a world leader in many aspects of space technology. An estimated 15,000 people are employed in more than 200 companies in Britain in space-related jobs. The jobs are highly skilled, and more than two thirds of the workers hold a university degree. The industry generates about £4 billion a year for the British economy, and it is therefore important that we maintain it. It is vital that our schools and universities continue to produce people with high expertise in science, especially in physics, chemistry, astronomy and maths. Young people must be encouraged to take those subjects at school and university. The excitement and possibilities of space travel and exploration certainly encourage young people and must be used for that purpose. In order to achieve that, we need more graduates of those subjects teaching in our schools. We also need to address the supply of research scientists. We need to ensure that there are physics departments in local universities and that these subjects are sustained and grown. We need to tackle the problem of short-term contracts and job insecurity for science post-doctoral researchers. We also need to recognise that increased student debt deters graduates from going into teaching and research in the public sector and encourages them to go into higher-paid jobs in private industry. Investing in space involves cutting-edge technology, which is obviously very expensive. Co-operating with our European partners clearly makes sense. Roughly two thirds of the UK's budget is spent through the European Space Agency and EUMETSAT—the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites—which provides and operates Europe's weather forecasting satellites. The procurement system used by ESA is known as ““fair returns to contributing nations””. That means that the bulk of the contracts are awarded to companies simply because they are in countries that have contributed to the ESA budget and not necessarily because they are the most cost-effective bidders. That is not a sensible system. Awarding the contract to the most cost-effective bidder would be better and would reduce costs. However, given that that is the system, it is important that Britain contributes, so that British companies can gain a fair share of the contracts. The loss of the Beagle 2 Mars lander was referred to earlier in the debate. It was clearly a setback to the UK's involvement in space, but we should not allow that setback to deter us from undertaking future projects. It is necessary to take risks to make scientific progress and in a cutting-edge business such as space, some projects will inevitably be disappointing failures. Beagle 2 was an exciting project and high-value returns were possible, so it was right to take risks.